Academy Falls 2-1 to Manchester City

The LA Galaxy Academy narrowly
missed out on the first positive result of their England tour this afternoon with a 2-1 defeat to
Manchester
City at Platt
Lane.

With just one game scheduled,
coaches Trevor James, Matt Mennell
and Kenny Arena used a combination of the U-16 and U-18 squads against a City
side that featured a host of Youth Internationals from across Europe, including
Frederic Veseli, the captain of the Swiss team that won the 2009 U-17 World Cup
in Nigeria in November and England U-17 midfielder Ahmed
Benali.

Despite not playing together as a
group prior to Wednesday morning's warmup, the Galaxy nearly took an early lead
over their hosts with forward Christian Alvarado having a goal called back for
offside and midfielder Riley Wolfe blazing a freekick high over the bar inside
the opening 10 minutes.

At the other end of the field,
defender Joe Kearney was forced to clear off his line after City had beaten
goalkeeper Vince Paldino, who later came up with a reflex save of his own to
keep the game scoreless at the break.

Shortly after the restart, U-16
forward Neil Ignacio, who scored his team's first goal on Monday at Blackburn, entered the game and had an immediate impact.
He raced onto a long ball down the right flank from Wolfe, managing to keep the
ball in play before in crossed over the end line. Ignacio then spun past a City
defender and crossed to Alvarado at the near post where the Galaxy forward was
able to smash a header home and put LA up 1-0.

However that lead would last just
two minutes before City equalized, slotting home the rebound of another diving
stop by Paladino.

City scored the winner with just
more than 20 minutes left when they caught the Galaxy on a quick counterattack
and beat Paladino to make the score 2-1.

Ignacio and fellow substitute
midfielder Ritchie Gonzalez each had chances to equalize late on but could not
find a way past the City goalkeeper and the game finished 2-1 in favor of the
hosts.